Poster #54 - Infant Temperament, Parent Dispositional Empathy, and Mothers’ and Fathers’ Parenting Quality

• In Event: Poster Session 07

Abstract

Parenting in the child’s early years is a critical influence on children’s development (Taraban & Shaw, 2018). One key component of high-quality parenting in infancy is sensitive, warm, and engaged parent behavior. A parent’s ability to exhibit high-quality parenting is influenced by many factors, including their developmental history and personality, their marital relations, and work experiences (Belsky, 1984). Temperament is a biologically-based component of a child’s characteristics that can influence parenting behavior (Belsky, 1984). When a parent has a child with greater negative emotionality or poorer regulatory capacity, it may be harder to maintain high-quality parenting (Crockenberg & Leerkes, 2003). This then can impact a child’s development. However, some parents may be better able to maintain high parenting quality regardless of the child’s temperament. Parental empathy is characterized as a parent’s ability to recognize, take the perspective of, and appropriately react to children's emotions (Boorman et al. 2019). Mothers with greater dispositional empathy are more sensitive and responsive to their infants, although relatively little research has considered the role of dispositional empathy in fathers’ parenting quality. Therefore, this study examined the associations of infant negative emotionality and regulatory capacity with the parenting quality of new mothers and fathers, and whether these associations were moderated by parent empathy.

Participants were drawn from a longitudinal study of 182 dual-earner U.S. couples, primarily White and of moderate to high SES, who had their first child in 2008-2009. During pregnancy, expectant mothers and fathers each completed the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (Davis, 1980) to assess their empathic concern, perspective-taking, and personal distress. At 3 months postpartum, mothers and fathers each reported their infant’s negative affectivity and regulatory capacity on the Infant Behavior Questionnaire-VSF (Putnam et al., 2014). Also at 3 months postpartum, mothers’ and fathers’ positive parenting quality (sensitivity, positive regard, and non-detachment) and negative parenting quality (intrusiveness and negative regard) were coded from separate 5-min observational assessments (Cox & Crnic, 2002).

Correlation analyses indicated that there were no direct significant associations between infant negative emotionality and mothers’ or fathers’ parenting quality, nor were there direct significant associations between infant regulatory capacity and mothers’ or fathers’ parenting quality. Regression analyses showed no evidence that parental empathic concern, perspective-taking, and personal distress moderated associations between infant negative emotionality and mothers’ or fathers’ parenting quality. Parental empathic concern and perspective-taking also did not moderate associations between infant regulatory capacity and mothers’ or fathers’ parenting quality. However, the associations between mothers’ perceptions of infant regulatory capacity and their positive and negative parenting quality was moderated by mothers’ personal distress (Figs 1 and 2), such that infant low regulatory capacity appeared to compromise mothers’ parenting quality when mothers’ experienced high personal distress. In addition, fathers’ personal distress was a significant predictor of parenting quality, such that fathers who reported greater personal distress showed more negative and less positive parenting behavior. Thus, expectant parents who report experiencing discomfort in response to others’ distress are at greater risk for poorer-quality parenting, especially (for mothers) when infants have poorer regulatory capacity.

Authors

• Tinu Oduloye, Ohio State University
  Presenting Author

• Sarah Jane Schoppe-Sullivan, Ohio State University